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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25084858">to the stars beyond</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujaeyu/pseuds/yujaeyu'>yujaeyu</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>NCT (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, and they were ROOMMATES</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:21:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,056</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25084858</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujaeyu/pseuds/yujaeyu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hyung, have you ever been in love?"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Moon Taeil/Nakamoto Yuta</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>52</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>to the stars beyond</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If Taeil shuts his eyes, he can imagine that the white plaster that makes up the ceiling is the night sky, void of stars. It’s limitless, the way the comforting darkness seems to span beyond the four walls of their room, spilling over into infinity. Taeil should feel insignificant, a couple of years ago, he would’ve, but he’s grown up a lot in such a short period of time. When Yuta snuggles up closer to him, his body heat taking over Taeil’s system, Taeil knows that he’ll never be insignificant again.</p><p> </p><p>Taeil doesn’t know when it started, he’d always been more on the introverted side, his walls built up so high that no one could even think of scaling them. Taeil, even as part of a boy group that had to act like a family on national television, doesn’t let any of that bleed into how he personally felt. He loved his group members, whether he promoted with them or not, but that was where it ended. Fragile love that would dissipate in an instant if any of them left the group.</p><p> </p><p>Taeil is distant from the world, blank and empty. He knows he’s a special person, full of talent that seems to grow even more intense whenever he’s looking away. Taeil knows that he’s loved and cherished, both as an idol by fans and as family by his group members. Taeil knows he’s anything but ordinary, yet, he finds himself feeling small in a world that expands beyond his imagination. To him, he’s the empty night sky that rolls beyond the horizon. He’s infinite, but so distant from humanity that he can no longer touch the earth.</p><p> </p><p>It’s lonely, he thinks, being the starless night sky. He’s void of everything that’s meant to make him human, doomed to walk an existence on his own.</p><p> </p><p>Then, he becomes roommates with Yuta.</p><p> </p><p>It starts like any other roommate arrangement, he shares the room with Yuta and Winwin. They divide the room three ways and ensure everyone knows of the others’ boundaries. A year later, Winwin moves out and Jungwoo takes his place. Another year beyond and Jungwoo moves out too, he makes it clear that he won’t be coming back to their room after his hiatus, that he’s moving into Jaehyun’s room. Taeil and Yuta find themselves alone in a room that feels too big for just two people for the first time.</p><p> </p><p>It’s weeks of awkward silence between them, not knowing how to speak to each other when there isn’t a third party to start the conversation neither of them wanted to start first. Taeil doesn’t expect Yuta to make the first move, and he doesn’t know why he cares so much, because had it been anyone else, he thinks he wouldn’t have cared about the silence that encases them.</p><p> </p><p>With Yuta, the silence is suffocating. Taeil feels tortured at what he can look at, but can’t touch and feel. It takes that long for Taeil to think of his history as a member of their group, to think that no matter what he’s done, Yuta has always been there. Yuta is a fixed presence in Taeil’s life, important to Taeil in the way no other member can compare. </p><p> </p><p>Yuta, Taeil thinks, is like a star. For the first time in his life, he doesn’t feel like the empty sky. For the first time in his life, he feels like a meteorite, rushing towards Yuta at inhumane speeds. He feels his body rush with energy, the warmth that overtakes him is addictive. </p><p> </p><p>Yuta is bright, so bright that it almost burns Taeil. He is energy in its purest form, and Taeil doesn’t know when, but Yuta becomes his energy too. Yuta is explosive, and that he does, he explodes into Taeil’s night sky and fills the blank darkness up with the colours of the nebula. Taeil envelopes Yuta in a blanket of the night and Yuta spills into him, painting his sky with more colours than Taeil knows how to name. </p><p> </p><p>Taeil crashes into Yuta too easily, like they’ve always belonged together. </p><p> </p><p>Falling in love with Yuta is a given, Taeil doesn’t believe there’s a single person in this world who could fall between Yuta’s arms and not succumb to his roommate’s endless charms. Yuta is addictive, Yuta is everything Taeil wants and needs. Yuta is special, and for the first time in his life, Taeil thinks he’s met someone far more extraordinary than he is. </p><p> </p><p>Taeil falls in love with Yuta not long after he first falls into Yuta’s bed, and now, staring up at the ceiling with Yuta’s body pressed against his, he thinks he’s more in love than he’s ever been.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you thinking about?” Yuta’s voice is unexpected, breaking the tranquillity of Taeil’s self-imposed silent hours. Taeil turns over to face Yuta, who is staring at him with eyes that hold the galaxy. “It’s late, you should sleep.”</p><p> </p><p>“Says you,” Taeil replies, teasing. Even in the lack of light, Taeil can make out the colouring of Yuta’s cheeks. He feels Yuta reach down and grab his hand, intertwining their fingers as he maintains eye contact with Taeil. Taeil can’t help but smile.</p><p> </p><p>“I can't sleep,” Yuta admits. “I’ve been awake the whole time, I wanted to talk to you, but you looked so peaceful.”</p><p> </p><p>Taeil let’s go of Yuta’s hand and instead, opts to curl his arm around Yuta’s waist, pulling him in closer. The man that Taeil was a few years ago wouldn’t have even considered the possibility of being pressed up so close to someone. He’s talked to Johnny about it before, Johnny who is more than open about his relationship with Doyoung. Johnny had laughed in his face when Taeil had scrunched up his nose at the idea of cuddling, calling it uncomfortable and a waste of time. Johnny had winked at him and told him that all he needed to do was to find the one person he wanted to do it with, and then it would all make sense.</p><p> </p><p>Pressed up against Yuta, Taeil thinks that it does make sense now. Taeil thinks that he could hold Yuta forever and find his time well spent. No, he knows it.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re worth so much more to me,” Taeil whispers, moving his head over Yuta’s shoulder. Yuta, himself, buries his face into Taeil’s chest as Taeil fingers leave Yuta’s waist and move beneath his white shirt, tracing patterns onto his back. “Than my own peace.”</p><p> </p><p>He feels Yuta smile against his chest and a silence falls over them. It’s nothing like the silence that used to blanket over them, because Taeil wasn’t hopelessly in love with Yuta back then. Now, he can’t picture his life without his star.</p><p> </p><p>Taeil knows Yuta loves him too, he can see it in every single inch of Yuta that he’s had the privilege to explore. Taeil knows that Yuta is just as in love with him, and he knows Yuta knows it too. It hangs over them like, unspoken, but it’s something they’ve both fallen into effortlessly. </p><p> </p><p>Taeil also knows Yuta well enough to know that Yuta is honest and upfront. He speaks his mind and of his feelings like they’re conversation starters, he’s open in all the ways Taeil isn’t. Taeil knows that it’s only a matter of time before Yuta directly tells him how he feels, and though Taeil has spent twenty years avoiding feelings and running from truths, he finds himself looking forward to the day Yuta does so.</p><p> </p><p>Taeil is scarily in love with Yuta, for someone who had always thought there wasn’t anyone in the world made for him.</p><p> </p><p>Yuta, Taeil thinks, is his soulmate. He’s found Yuta from over seven billion people he’d never even glance at. He’s found Yuta, and now he just has to find a way to keep him in his life forever.</p><p> </p><p>“If you don’t mind, there’s been something I’ve wanted to ask you for a while,” Yuta says, moving his face away from Taeil’s chest to face him directly. He looks nervous, eyes reflecting the slivers of light that pass through the cracks of the curtains as they dart around. </p><p> </p><p>Taeil raises his brow, unsure if Yuta can see the shift in his expression. “Yes?”</p><p> </p><p>Yuta is silent for a moment too long, fixing his gaze away from Taeil’s eyes, he opts to stare past Taeil instead, the wall behind him. Taeil’s heart skips a beat with Yuta’s silence and he realises that it’s about to happen.</p><p> </p><p>Younger Taeil, whose eyes held its own galaxy and who firmly believed he’d have to walk the path of life on his own, fades away from Taeil’s mind as he looks at Yuta.</p><p> </p><p>“Hyung, have you ever been in love?” Yuta asks softly, Taeil can feel the warmth of his breath against his bare shoulder. He swallows the lump in his throat, fingers stopping their movements across Yuta’s back as his heart beats into overdrive.</p><p> </p><p>“Once,” Taeil replies, sounding as natural as he can muster. Yuta shifts in Taeil’s hold, but Taeil doesn’t let him squirm further away from him, wanting to hold Yuta close for whatever it is Yuta has to say.</p><p> </p><p>In a sudden moment of bravery, Yuta looks up to meet Taeil’s eyes. Their faces are dangerously close as Yuta bites down lightly on his lower lip, his eyes glinting in the darkness. “How did it end?”</p><p> </p><p>Yuta’s face is a mixture of a thousand emotions and Taeil wants to wipe it off, drown out everything Yuta feels and replace it with him. Him, and only him. Taeil thinks it’s impossible for people to not fall in love with the vibrance of Nakamoto Yuta, but he’s selfish, and he wants to be the only one on Yuta’s mind.</p><p> </p><p>He reaches up and gently cups Yuta’s face, watching as Yuta’s eyes dart to look at his hand and then move back up to meet his eyes once again. Taeil gazes at Yuta and thinks that even in the dark, Yuta is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. With his heart hammering, he presses a tender kiss to Yuta’s forehead.</p><p> </p><p>“It hasn’t ended,” Taeil replies, thumb stroking Yuta’s cheek. “And I doubt it ever will.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh,” Yuta replies quietly. Silence falls over them again and Taeil thinks time could freeze like this for eternity and he would be satisfied. “You missed, by the way.”</p><p> </p><p>“Missed what?” Taeil asks dumbly and he watches as Yuta raises a finger to his lip and taps on it, a shy smile blooming on his face. “I see.”</p><p> </p><p>Kissing Yuta is another thing Taeil thinks he could do forever. To place it in the simplest terms possible, Taeil thinks he could do anything forever as long as it involves Yuta loving him. Yuta’s lips slot against Taeil’s like they were made for each other, like they are two halves of a perfect whole. He tastes like love, like the future, like all of the cosmos that lay beyond them, and Taeil loses himself in Yuta’s addictive presence.</p><p> </p><p>When they break away for air, Taeil finds himself missing Yuta immediately. He feels empty, but it’s a different kind of emptiness from what he’s felt all those years. Emptiness feels like being far from home, trapped in an unfamiliar terrain far from comfort, but Taeil doesn’t hate it. It’s hard to hate the feeling when a few years ago, emptiness was not having a home at all. </p><p> </p><p>Yuta, after all, is more like a home to Taeil than anything has ever been.</p><p> </p><p>“I love you, you know?” Yuta mumbles, voice muffled against Taeil’s lips when they find their way to each other again. “I thought it was going to kill me if I didn’t verbalise it to you soon.”</p><p> </p><p>Taeil giggles softly, threading his fingers through Yuta’s hair. “I love you too, wasn't it obvious?”</p><p> </p><p>“Only a little,” Yuta replies, shifting up to press their foreheads together. He laughs breathlessly. “I lied, it was very obvious.”</p><p> </p><p>Taeil laughs as he feels warmth course through his veins. For a boy who thought his place in the universe was to be alone, distant from all of humanity, having the sole star in the night sky between his arms is more than a blessing.</p><p> </p><p>Yuta, Taeil decides right then, is his eternity.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I literally wrote this in like one hour.</p><p>Inspired by this <i><a href="https://twitter.com/IncorrectYuil/status/1274234870433116160">tweet</a></i></p><p>Find me on twitter: <i><a href="twitter.com/yujaeyu">@yujaeyu</a></i></p></blockquote></div></div>
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